I lately lost a preposition

[Mark Mandel]

Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > > I just wrote, in an email message but I would probably also in a
> > > letter, "I would want to make any agreed changes myself."  And I'm in
> > > America.

Randy (LanDi Liu) answered:
> >That's an adjectival use of "agreed", so totally different; it has no
object
> >so it's not transitivized.

Joel replied:
> I wondered.  Still, isn't it an alternative to "any agreed-to changes"?

Randy replied:
Well, it certainly is dropping the preposition, but it is different than the
other examples in that "changes" is not the object of agreed.

Also, is the original construction a question of a non-transitive verb
becoming transitive, or a phrasal verb losing its particle?  Or given the
ambiguity between phrasal verbs and verbs that take preposition phrases as
objects, is this even a worthwhile question?

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I felt, like Joel, that the prep. had been dropped here. I don't think you
can derive "agreed", without preposition, as an adj unless you already have
it as a transitive verb.

m a m

Mark Mandel

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